BIEN European Network BIEN was founded in 1986 and aims to serve as a link between individuals and groups committed to or interested in basic income, and to foster informed discussion on this topic throughout Europe.

Link to BIEN Online at http://www.basicincome.org E-mail: [email protected]

NewsFlash N°11 SEPTEMBER 2001

BIEN's NewsFlash contains up-to-date information on recent events and publications related to BIEN or basic income more generally. The NewsFlash is mailed electronically every two months to over 800 subscribers throughout Europe and beyond, and simultaneously made available for consultation or download at BIEN Online. Requests for free subscription or items for inclusion or review in future NewsFlashes are to be sent to BIEN's secretariat: , 17 rue de Pavie, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, E-mail: [email protected].

This NewsFlash has been prepared with the help of Pascal Couillard, Dirk Jacobi, Laurence Jacquet, Jeroen Knijff, Dani Raventos, Eduardo Suplicy, Jim Tobin, Yannick Vanderborght and Karl Widerquist.

CONTENTS

1. Editorial 2. Events • Galapagar, 18-20 September 2001 • Louvain-la-Neuve, 18 October 2001 • New York, 8-9 March 2002 • Geneva, 12-14 September 2002 3. The Suplicy-Tobin Exchange 4. Recent publications • Catalan: Raventos • Dutch: de Beer • English: Brittan, Carlier, Widerquist • French: Blais & al., Geffroy • Italian: Lunghini & al. • Spanish: Raventos ed. 5. National networks 6. More about BIEN

1. EDITORIAL

Will basic income cure, along with many other ills, the sort of terrorism that culminated in New York on the 11th of September? No, it will not. But surely a combination of worldwide solidarity and mutual respect is an essential ingredient in any long-term solution. And no transfer scheme can be more consonant with such a combination than a .

In a less remote future, in March 2002, the same city of New York will host the first congress of the United States Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG). Inspired by BIEN, USBIG is wider in scope, since it defines BIG as "the assurance by the federal government that no citizen's income will fall below a minimum level for any reason". Further details and a call for papers are included below. Contributors from Europe are most welcome.

A useful background to this timely initiative is provided by Professor James Tobin, one of the first and most prestigious North American advocates of a "basic income guarantee", in his replies to the questions sent to him by Brazilian Senator and long-time BIEN member Eduardo Suplicy. Just as we did in our May 2000 issue for the Suplicy-Friedman exchange, we are publishing in full below this interesting pan-American dialogue. The Executive Committee

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 1 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com

2. EVENTS

GALAPAGAR(ES), 18-20 September 2001: LA RENTA BASICA DE CIUDADANIA

Summer School of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) organised by the Escuela Jaime Vera and entirely focused on basic income. The presentation of the event refers to "the PSOE's commitment to give reality to a citizenship basic income as a guarantee, in the medium run, of universal minimum incomes for all citizens that would allow their individual freedom to develop a life project not to be constrained by the lack of basic economic means of subsistence". Opening address by Jordi Sevilla, the PSOE's secretary for economic policy and employment. Talks by Daniel Raventós (Universidad Barcelona), Antoni Castells (Universidad Barcelona), Elvira Cortajerena (socialist MP), Luis Ayala (Universidad Castilla-La Mancha ), Salvador Giner (Universidad de Barcelona), Ramón Jaúregui (socialist MP), Jesús Ruiz Huerta (Universidad Complutense). Panel discussion chaired by Consuelo Rumí (PSOE's secretary for social and migration policies). For further information, contact Daniel Raventos at [email protected]

LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE (BE), 18 October 2001: FRIEDMAN'S REVENGE ?

A workshop with John Myles (University of Toronto) on two distinct themes: the development of tax-credit-based welfare states and the restructuring of Europe's pension systems. Background: J. Myles & P. Pierson, "Friedman's Revenge. The Reform of 'Liberal' Welfare States in the US and Canada" (European University Institute, 1997) and J. Myles, "A New Social Contract for the Elderly?" (prepared for a conference organised by the Belgian Presidency of the EU, 2001). For further information, contact the UCL Chaire Hoover at [email protected] or visit http://www.etes.ucl.ac.be/

NEW YORK (US), 8-9 March 2002: FIRST CONGRESS OF THE U.S. BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE NETWORK: FUNDAMENTAL INSECURITY OR BASIC INCOME GUARANTEE

The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) is an organisation dedicated to increasing public discussion of the Basic Income Guarantee, i.e. "the assurance by the federal government that no citizen's income will fall below a minimum level for any reason". Its first congress will be held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (365 Fifth Avenue, NYC). It is sponsored by the Center for Social Justice, School of Social Welfare, Stony Brook University, and The Cultural Studies Department of the CUNY Graduate Center. Its purpose is to bring together a wide group of academics, policy analysts, students, activists, and others interested in exploring the merits of BIG. It will consist of a series of panels, discussion groups, and speakers and it will include an organizational meeting for USBIG. The organisers invite proposals for papers and panels on topics related to the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG), including but not limited to the following:

1. The movement for a or a Guaranteed Income in the United States 2. The ethics of BIG 3. The politics of BIG 4. The Alaskan dividend: the existing BIG 5. The impact of a BIG on civil society 6. The efficiency-equity trade-off and the BIG 7. The BIG and the family: Effects on marital status, domestic violence, and child poverty 8. The BIG outside the United States 9. The labour market effects of BIG 10. Funding a BIG 11. Substitutes or complements? The relationship between BIG, guaranteed employment, wage subsidies, and the living wage movement 12. The problem at hand: recent trends in poverty and child poverty in the U.S. and possibility of increased employment insecurity in the next recession

Anyone interested in presenting a paper or organizing a session should submit a proposal by 8 December 2001 to Michael A. Lewis at [email protected], School of Social Welfare, Stony Brook University, Health Sciences Center, Stony Brook, NY 11794-8231, USA. Paper proposals should include the following: Name, University/Organization,

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 2 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com Address (City, State, Zip Code and Country), Telephone, fax, E-mail Address, Paper Title, Abstract. For further information, visit http://www.usbig.net or contact Karl Widerquist at [email protected].

GENEVA, 12-14 September 2002: 9 th CONGRESS OF THE BASIC INCOME EUROPEAN NETWORK

Preparation is progressing, under the leadership of ([email protected]) and Bridget Dommen-Meade ([email protected]). BIEN's Executive Committee will be holding its annual meeting in Geneva on Saturday 13 October with the Congress as the main item on its agenda. Further information in our next news flash and on http://www.basicincome.org.

3. THE SUPLICY-TOBIN EXCHANGE

The Yale economist, Nobel laureate and father of the "Tobin tax" proposal, James TOBIN was among the very first academics to publish technical papers on the negative income tax in the late sixties. He himself favoured a non-means-tested variant of the negative income tax, which he called demogrant, and which he advised George McGovern to put on his electoral platform for the 1972 presidential election.

A US-trained economist and prominent member of 's main left-wing party (PT), Eduardo Matarazzo SUPLICY has been senator for the state of São Paulo for many years. In 1991, he presented a bill which, if passed, would have established a guaranteed income for all Brazilian in the form of a negative income tax. Many modest guaranteed income schemes have since been experimented at a more local level throughout Brazil, and have now been granted some federal backing. Senator Suplicy is now preparing a new book (The Exit is Through the Door. Towards a Citizen's Income) and to get some matters straight, he first wrote to (see their exchange in NewsFlash n°3, May 2000), and later to James Tobin. Here is the full text of Suplicy's questions (11 August 2001) and of Tobin's answers (18 September 2001).

1. SUPLICY: When was the first time you became acquainted with the idea of a guaranteed minimum income, either through a negative income tax or a basic income?

TOBIN: I first became interested in a basic income or demogrant in 1965 when I undertook to write an article for the journal Daedalus "On Improving the Economic Status of the Negro". This was for an issue devoted entirely to Negro problems in America, published as a book in 1966. This was a new subject for me, and I tried to generate a platform on my own without reference to existing literature. One of my several proposals was a universal demogrant of $300 -- for everyone of course, not just Negroes-- and a negative income tax of 1/3. I drew the now familiar graph relating family disposable income to income, taking account of demogrant as taxed and regular income tax. I knew nothing of previous proposals of this kind. I was writing a pragmatic policy paper, not a scholarly article, and this proposal just seemed to me an obvious thing to do. This article was followed by numerous papers in which I advocated this proposal, still in the pragmatic policy spirit. At some point I became aware of Friedman's proposal, but I thought it was confined to a negative income tax rate equal to the lowest income tax bracket tax rate, and that didn't seem to me to offer substantial help. I was not aware of proposals in other countries.

2. SUPLICY: Who were the authors that most influenced you when you developed the idea of a negative income tax and then of the demogrant that would be paid to all American citizens? How was the idea developed?

TOBIN: No previous authors influenced me. Together with my colleagues Brainard, Watts, Mieskowski, Pechman and others, I tried to formulate a proposal and sell it at the same time.

3. SUPLICY: To what extent did you take into account the critical views of the classical economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and from another perspective, Karl Marx on the several forms taken by the "Poor Laws"? Take, for example, the observations made by David Ricardo in his chapter "On wages" in his "On

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 3 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" (1817): "The clear and direct tendency of the poor laws is in direct opposition to the obvious principles: it is not, as the legislature benevolently intended, to amend the condition of the poor but to deteriorate the condition of both poor and rich; instead of making the poor rich, they are calculated to make the rich poor; and whilst the present laws are in force, it is quite in the natural order of things that the fund for the maintenance of the poor should progressively increase, till it has absorbed all the net revenue of the country, or at least so much of it as the state shall leave to us, after satisfying its own never failing demands for the public sphereŠ If by law every human being wanting support could be sure to obtain it, and obtain in such a degree as to make life tolerably comfortable, theory would lead us to expect that all other taxes together would be light compared to the single one of poor rates."

TOBIN: To no extent. I am more a pragmatist than a scholar. I have always been confident I could work fairly obvious things out on my own. Of course I understood Ricardo's point, even if I hadn't remembered his words, but this was an empirical question and I wasn't that pessimistic.

4. SUPLICY: To what extent did you consider the contributions of Augustin Cournot (1838), James Edward Meade (1935), Joan Robinson (1937), Abba Lerner (1944), Friedrich Von Hayek (1944), George Stigler (1944), Milton Friedman (1962) or any other author when developing your own views on the guaranteed income?

TOBIN: See above.

5. SUPLICY: To what extent, when proposing to institute a guaranteed income have you taken into account that it could have a wide support in the political spectrum?

TOBIN: I was afraid it wouldn't have much support at all. The politically active and powerful strata would be against it, and they would prevail. The people who might gain from it wouldn't vote and would share the bourgeois values of those better off.

6. SUPLICY: Which were the main authors and articulators of the Spring 1968 document that called for the National Congress "to adopt this year a system of income guarantees and supplements"? Could you please tell shortly about the history of this initiative?

TOBIN: This petition was formulated and circulated by a young MIT assistant professor who had been a student of mine at Yale. At this moment, in my vacation home I can't remember his name. Or the number of economists who signed it. I thought it was successful. But Friedman wouldn't join. That was a disappointment to the hope that this proposal might have wide nonpolitical and non-ideological support. This also confirmed my previous suspicion that Friedman's support of NIT was half-hearted.

7. SUPLICY: To what extent has the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) contributed to the purpose of eradicating poverty as well as of increasing the level of employment in the USA?

TOBIN: It was an anti-poverty measure, formulated to minimize incentives not to work. The general public was suspicious that the pure NIT would discourage work and didn't want to spend money with that effect. The NIT experiments were thought to have shown that a household's supply of labor would be diminished by demogrants. This effect was confined to secondary workers and it was neither surprising nor very large. But it had an immense effect adverse to the NIT. The EITC was the result,

8. SUPLICY: Has the EITC, especially after being expanded since 1993, contributed to the US having lower rates of unemployment until the year 2000? Why has the unemployment rate been increasing during the year 2001?

TOBIN: I don't think the EITC had much effect on unemployment rates. The decline in unemployment in the 1990s was largely the result of good macro policy, especially by Greenspan at the Fed, and some good luck. See Blinder and Yellen, The Fabulous Decade.

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 4 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com 9. SUPLICY: Would the full negative income tax, as specified in Nixon's Family Assistance Plan of 1969, be more efficient for the purpose of eradicating poverty?

TOBIN: Yes, in my opinion, for diminishing poverty. Maybe not for reducing unemployment, but I think that's mainly macroeconomics anyway.

10. SUPLICY: Would you please say how you developed and with whom the idea of paying a "demogrant" to all Americans, when George Mc Govern proposed it in the 1972 national elections? How much would the value of the demogrant proposed at that time be today in dollars? Why was the idea not so well accepted in that campaign?

TOBIN: The McGovern campaign proposal was prepared by me and Brainard and Watts, also Bulow and Shoven. The economist in general charge of the platform was the late Edwin Kuh. Unfortunately McGovern himself was not adept at numbers, and his political advisers, whose attachment to the Senator was very close from long experience, were jealous of us economists and didn't give priority to our proposal. No one who understood the proposal and its place in the budget accompanied the candidate on tour. The result was that in California McGovern looked bad when he couldn't respond to criticisms from his primary opponent Senator Humphrey and to jibes from the press. Nixon attacked him in the general campaign. Ironically Nixon, once elected, took Moynihan's advice and proposed essentially the same thing in the FAP. Ironically too, the killed that proposal, influenced by social workers etc who wanted a universal children's allowance without any NIT features, doomed because it was so expensive.

11. SUPLICY: To what extent was the proposal of a demogrant in 1972 similar to that of a basic income as defended today by the Basic Income European Network and Philippe Van Parijs, for example, in What's wrong with a free Lunch? (Beacon Press, 2001, Foreword by Robert M. Solow)?

TOBIN: I don't know.

12. SUPLICY: How do you evaluate the experience of the that has paid every year since 1980 equal dividends to all residents in Alaska for a year or more, and it will pay more than US$ 2.000 to more than 600.000 habitants of that State next October as a citizens right? Do you believe that it is a relevant experience to be studied by all states and countries?

TOBIN: I am not informed on Alaska. I guess that the experience of societies with large natural endowments to share are not very relevant to the rest of us.

13. SUPLICY: Should we first start with very modest guaranteed income programs related to educational opportunities, or Bolsa-Escola programs, for the poor families to have the right to receive a modest complement of income as long as their children in school age are going to school?

TOBIN: I don't know. It sounds worth a try.

14. SUPLICY: Would you recommend us in Brazil to implement subsidies to employment such as suggested by Edmond Phelps in Rewarding Work (1997).

TOBIN: I don't think so. Experience in the 1990s suggests to me that sound macro policies can keep unemployment low. Phelps, I believe, thought non-inflationary unemployment was no lower than 6 or even 7 per cent.

15. SUPLICY: Or should we institute a negative income tax program to all adult citizens so as to guarantee a minimum income to all?

TOBIN: I still favor that.

16. SUPLICY: There is now in Brazil the consideration of alternative programs to poor families: the distribution of baskets of basic goods especially in the context of disasters such as droughts or floods; the institution of a food stamp program; and the institution of a guaranteed income program. Would you please comment on these alternatives in

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 5 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com the light of the American experience. Are there strong arguments that we should better consider the food stamp program instead of the guaranteed income program?

TOBIN: Since 15 is very expensive and difficult to sell politically, a program confined to certain necessities is appealing. Food Stamps were good in US for a long time and were pretty much equivalent to cash. Politically they benefited from support of agricultural interests. Health insurance should be the subject of a NIT. I proposed a program that would guarantee that no family would have to pay more than 10% of income to be fully insured and all would be required to be insured.

17. SUPLICY: Would you recommend Brazil to introduce a basic income as soon as possible for all the 170 million inhabitants?

TOBIN: I don't know Brazil well enough to venture a recommendation.

Some relevant publications by James Tobin:

• "On Improving the Economic Status of the Negro," Daedalus, Vol. 94, No. 4, Fall 1965 (Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences); also in: (1) The Negro American, T. Parsons and K. Clark, eds., Houghton Mifflin, 1966. • "On Limiting the Domain of Inequality," Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. XIII (2), October , pp. 263-277. • "Some Arithmetic on the McGovern Economic Policies," New York Times, July 18, 1972. • "An Exchange of Views," The New Republic, July 22, 1972. (J. Tobin's Reply to Melville J. Ulmer's June 24, 1972 article on "McGovern's Economics," and Reply by Melville J. Ulmer). • "Tax Reform and Income Redistribution: Issues and Alternatives," (with W. C. Brainard, J. Bulow and J. B. Shoven) in J. Tobin, Essays in Economics, Theory and Policy, Vol. 3, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982, pp. 585-609 • "Players and Payers" (People-based Universal Health Coverage) (with Michael Graetz), New York Times, Op-ed February 11, 1994. • "Health Care Reform as Seen by a General Economist," George Seltzer Lecture, Industrial Relations Center, University of Minnesota, April 29, 1994. Revised June 9, 1994, Pamphlet published by the Center 1995, pp 1-19.

4. PUBLICATIONS

CATALAN

RAVENTOS, Dani, "Ciutadania, teoria normativa republicana i renda bàsica", in FRC. Revista de debat polític 2, Abril-Octubre 2001, pp. 32-47. [Author's address: [email protected]]

A didactic and well-informed introduction to basic income, its theoretical underpinnings and the history of the European debate by the chairman of the newly created Spanish basic income network.

DUTCH

DE BEER Paul. Over werken in de postindustriële samenleving. Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, 2001, 424p.

After working for the research foundation of the Dutch Labour Party and coordinating a major effort to make it adopt basic income as one of its policies in the mid-eighties, Paul de Beer started working as an economist for the Dutch "Social and Cultural Planning Office" while preparing a doctoral dissertation at the University of Amsterdam. This dissertation has now taken the shape of a book on « working in the post-industrial society », which investigates whether the transition to a post-industrial labour market over the last 25 years in the Netherlands has been accompanied by an improvement in the quality of work. Having closely explored the huge transformations of the Dutch labour market, he states that « there is no evidence of unambiguous developments » with respect to the content of work and working conditions. He also stresses that, in spite of the so-called 'Dutch miracle', « the risk of poverty for both the employed and the non-employed hardly changed at all ». In the final part of the book, de Beer discusses the possibility of a « relaxed labour system » in the Netherlands : if productivity increases, participation should also be promoted via other routes than labour participation and paid employment. Does he think that basic income provides a way of achieving this « relaxed

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 6 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com labour system ». He does not say, simply reminding his readers of the debates on the 'work ethic' during the 'welfare without work' period (eighties) : « At the time, the supporters of a basic income had the wind in their sails. But it was only a small minority. » (p.336).

ENGLISH

BRITTAN, Samuel. "In Praise of Free Lunches", The Times Literary Supplement, 24 August 2001, 9- 10. (Author's address: The Financial Times, 1 Southwark Bridge, London SE1 9HL. Full text of the article: http://www.samuelbrittan.co.uk/text88_p.html.)

This is a restatement of Samuel Brittan's views on basic income, in the format of a review of R.J. van der Veen & L. Groot eds., Basic Income on the Agenda (Amsterdam, 2000) and P. Van Parijs & al., What's Wrong with a Free Lunch? (Boston, 2001). In addition to his favorite argument that widely shared unearned income is good for innovation in all areas of life, Brittan invokes "a very modern reason" for supporting a basic income: "It is surely better that those without the skills required in the modern economy should be able to do some low-paid work, supplemented by other sources of income, and not be forced into relying solely on the dole. Many elements of such an approach exist already in Labour's New Deal and social security reforms, which could be taken in gradual steps towards a universal minimum income and away from the present puritanical obsessions." The UK's existing Working Families' Tax credit, which is due to be extended to all adults by 2003, constitutes a negative income tax conditional on carrying out paid work. What Brittan views as the next step is a refundable tax credit for earners and non-earners alike. If a given level of payment is made in this form, rather than as an explicit payment to all, "it is much easier to explode exaggerated ideas of what such a scheme would cost". Might a "participation income", conditional upon some sort of participation, be an improvement? "It might be a politically necessary initial move. But in the end, we would see either a true Basic Income or the abandonment of the whole experiment". What about a universal basic endowment, as modestly illustrated by Labour's promise of a "baby bond", rather than a regular income? It should make the abandonment of the work test politically easier, but given that "prodigal sons" would not be left to starve, it would end up more expensive than the corresponding basic income variety. Yet, "it is so difficult to convince a still puritanical public opinion of the advantages of either kind of proposal that we should make progress wherever we can".

CARLIER, Jean-Yves. "Article 39 and Article 12 of the EC-treaty", in Federal Ministry of Social Security and Generations, Social Security in Europe. Conference on the EC Treaty and Regulation 1408/71, Wien: Bundesministerium für soziale Sicherheit und Generationen, [2001], pp. 29-47. [Author's address: Faculté de droit, Place Montesquieu 2, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, [email protected].]

In this contribution to a conference organised in Austria on legal aspects of European social security, the Belgian lawyer J.Y. Carlier reviews the state and prospects of social security in a (European) free movement context. He ends up sketching what he regards as the option that "seems to offer more long term possibilities": the introduction of "a universal European benefit or citizen's salary", which "is under wide discussion by member states, although the idea can only be realised and implemented at European level". This benefit "would be funded by the Union, through VAT and eco-taxes, for example, and payable at the place of residence". Other social security benefits would not be abolished, but remain organised at the national level and supplement this basic benefit, with the beneficiary being able to choose between the system of his country of origin and that of the host country.

WIDERQUIST, Karl. "Perspectives on the Guaranteed Income", Part I, The Journal of Economic Issues 35, 3, 2001, 749-757. (Author's address: [email protected])

A critical discussion of six books on basic income published between 1991 and 1998, including Arguing for Basic Income (P. Van Parijs ed.), for All (P. Van Parijs), The $30,000 Solution (R. Schutz), The Benefit of Another's Pains (G. Van Donselaar), ...And Economic Justice for All (M.L. Murray), and The National Tax Rebate (L M. Greene).

FRENCH

BLAIS, François & DUCLOS, Jean-Yves eds., Le revenu de citoyenneté : revue des écrits et consultation des experts, Québec (CA) : Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Société et la Culture, September 2001, 282p. (Editors' address: [email protected])

In 1999, Quebec's Fund for Research on Society and Culture invited Professors Blais and Duclos (Université Laval, Québec City) to synthesize the ins and outs of the citizen's income debate. This comprehensive report was written in collaboration with six researchers: Araar Abdelkrim, Marcel Filion, Martin Lavoie, Jean-François Simoneau, Patrick Tanguy (all Université Laval), and Yannick

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 7 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com Vanderborght (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium). Its aim is to become a tool for all « decision-makers, social workers and political militants » interested in a citizen's income. It consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 consists of a general presentation of basic income ; chapter 2 sketches the (surprisingly rich) history of the proposal in Canada; chapter 3 is devoted to « Health, welfare and citizen's income » ; chapter 4 focuses on the debates in three european countries : France, Ireland and the Netherlands ; chapter 5 presents an in-depth simulation of the economic and redistibutive impacts of basic income ; finally, chapter 6 presents a brief account of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Program.

GEFFROY, Laurent, 'Impôt négatif : les logiques cachées du débat', La Revue socialiste, May 2000, 53-67. Author's address: [email protected]

Published in the theoretical journal linked to Lionel Jospin's Socialist Party, this paper focuses on the recent debates about tax credits in France (as reported in earlier BIEN news flashes). According to Laurent Geffroy, who is currently preparing a doctoral thesis in Paris on the social history of basic income in the French context, three main groups were involved in these debates. The first group, mostly composed of economists, favored the negative income tax (NIT) as a way of tackling the disincentive effects of the means-tested minimum income scheme RMI (Revenu minimum d'insertion); the second group, which is called 'neo-Fordist' by Geffroy, considered the NIT as a right-wing strategy, and proposed to rather increase the level of the minimum wage. Finally, the 'post-Fordist' critics included the basic income supporters, who were arguing for a radical disconnection between work and social benefits. In the last section of his paper, Geffroy discusses in more general terms the alternative basic income proposals.

ITALIAN

LUNGHINI, Giorgio, SILVA, Francesco & TARGETTI LENTI, Renata. Politiche pubbliche per il lavoro, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001, 342p., ISBN 88-15-08223-9. (Editors' e-mail: [email protected])

Part II (pp. 81-197) of this scholarly publication is entirely devoted to basic income, and as such the fullest academic economic discussion of the proposal in the Italian language. Economist Renata Targetti Lenti (Università di Pavia) presents the main theoretical justifications for basic income and discusses the latter's sustainability. Enrica Chiappero Martinetti (Università di Pavia) evaluates basic income in the context of the equity-efficiency trade off. Massimiliano Serati (Libero Istituto Universitario Cattaneo) offers an empirical estimate of the impact of a replacing existing transfer schemes by a basic income in the Italian context. Andrea Fumagalli (Università di Pavia) wrote a more theoretical (and militant) piece on the relevance of basic income for a deeply modified labour market. Finally, Tiziana Alti and Franca Maino (Università di Pavia) provide a brief description and evaluation of the means-tested guaranteed income schemes that have been launched in Italy in 1998 at the initiative of the Prodi government.

SPANISH

RAVENTOS, Daniel (ed.). La Renta Básica. Por una ciudadanía más libre, más igualitaria y más fraterna, Barcelona: Ariel, 2001, 238p., ISBN 84-344-1819-3. (Editor's address: [email protected])

After Daniel Raventos's introduction to basic income (El Derecho a la Existencia, Ariel, 1999) and in a context in which Spain's debate on the proposal is expanding fast, this is a major new Spanish- language collection on basic income. Apart from three translated pieces (the proposal by S. Lerner & Co for Canada, and the contributions by P. Van Parijs and H.A. Simon to the special issue of the Boston Review) the book includes nine chapters specially written for this volume. In part I ("General"), Daniel Raventos (Universitat de Barcelona) surveys succinctly the main justifications and objections, while Jose Antonio Noguera (Universitat autonoma de Barcelona) discusses the relationship between a tax- funded basic income and contribution-based sopcial insurance schemes. In Part II ("Especifico"), Imanuel Zubero (Universidad del Pais Vasco) reflects on basic income and the centrality of work, Ruben Lo Vuolo (CIEPP, Buenos Aires) discusses the relevance of basic income to Latin America, and Rafael Pinilla (Valencia) proposes an economic assessment of the proposal. Finally, Part III ("Glosas") contains a discussion on the "ecumenism" of basic income by social theorist Andres de Francisco (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and philosopher Antoni Domènech (Universitat de Barcelona), a note on basic income and polarisation by social theorist Fernando Aguiar (Instituto de Estudios Sociales de Andalucia) and an extended reflection on basic income and workers' bargaining power by David Casassas & German Loewe (Universitat de Barcelona).

VAN PARIJS, Philippe. "Utopía para el tiempo presente", in Europa: Proyecto y realidad, special issue of La Documentación social. Revista de estudios sociales y de sociología aplicada (Caritas,

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 8 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com San Bernardo 99bis, 28015 Madrid, [email protected], www.caritas-espa.org) 123, Abril-Junio 2001, pp. 207-224. (Author's address: [email protected])

This is the Spanish translation of a plea for basic income as a central component of the European project, a much earlier version of which was presented at a hearing at the European Parliament in 1987. It appears here as part of a volume on the European project published by Spain's influential catholic NGO Caritas.

5. NATIONAL NETWORKS

OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED BY BIEN

• Citizen's Income Study Centre Director: Stuart Duffin St Philips Building, Sheffield Street, London WC2A 2EX, United Kingdom Tel.: 44-171-9557453 Fax: 44-171-9557534 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.citizensincome.org

• Vereniging Basinkomen Coordinator: Emiel Schäfer Elisabeth Wolffstraat 96-B 1053 TX Amsterdam, The Netherlands Telephone : 020-6799940 or 6167029 Fax: 020-6799940 E-mail: [email protected] Website : www.basisinkomen.nl

• BIEN Ireland Coordinator: John Baker Equality Studies Centre, University College, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland Tel +353-1-706 8365 Fax +353-1-706 1171 E-mail: [email protected]

AWAITING RECORNITION

• Red Renta Básica (Spain). Chairman: Daniel Raventós Address: Departamento de Teoría Sociológica y Metodologia de las CCSS. Diagonal, 690. 08034 Barcelona, Spain Web site: http://www.redrentabasica.org E-mail: [email protected]

OTHER EUROPEAN GROUPS

• Associación Renda Basica (AREBA) Coordinator: José Iglesias Fernández Salvador Espriu 89, 2°, 2a, E - 08005 Barcelona, Spain Fax: 34-3-225.48.20

• Association pour l'instauration d'un revenu d'existence (AIRE) Chairman: Yoland Bresson 33 Avenue des Fauvettes, F-91440 Bures sur Yvette, France E-mail: [email protected]

• Folkrorelsen for medborgarlon Coordinator: Kicki Bobacka Väpplingvägen 10, 227 38 LUND, Sweden Tel.: 046-140667 or 046-144545 E-mail: [email protected]

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 9 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com • Grundeinkommen Österreich Coordinator: Michael Striebel Akademie für Sozialarbeit Vorarlberg – ASAV, Kapuzinergasse 1, A-6900 Bregenz/Austria Tel: 43 /55 74 / 43 04 6-72 Fax: 43 / 55 74 / 43 04 66 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.vobs.at/asav/pax1.htm

• Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Sozialhilfeinitiativen (BAG-SHI) Contact: Wolfram Otto Kiel E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.existenzgeld.de

OUTSIDE EUROPE

• Universal Basic Income New Zealand (UBINZ) Coordinator: Ian Ritchie Private Bag 11.042 Palmerston North, New Zealand Tel. 06-350 6301 Fax 06 350 6319 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.geocities.com/~ubinz/

• Organisation advocating support income in Australia (OASIS) Convenor : Allan McDonald PO Box 280 Urangan Qld. 4655, Australia Fax 07 4128 9971 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.satcom.net.au/supportincome

• BIEN Brazil (Basic Income Earth Network) Coordinator: Eduardo Suplicy Senado Federal - Edifício Principal Térreo, Praça dos Três Poderes, Brasília - DF, Brazil Tel. 311-3213/15/17. E-mail: [email protected]

• U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) Coordinator: Karl Widerquist The Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000, USA Tel. +1-914-758-7735 Fax 914-758-1149 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.usbig.net

• Basic Income/Canada (BI/Canada) Coordinator: Sally Lerner Department of Environment and Resource Studies University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1 E-mail: [email protected] Provisional website: http://www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/Research/FW

OTHER RELEVANT WEBSITES

• http://www.apfc.org: The official site of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. Among much other information, it features the annual amounts of the universal and unconditional dividend paid to each Alaskan resident since 1982: nearly 2000 US dollars in 2000, compared to less than 400 at the start. • http://www.humano.ya.com/ademetrio: Run by Daniel Raventos, professor of economics at the University of Barcelona, this site gives wide information on publications and events relevant to basic income, especially in Spanish and in Catalan. It has an associated

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 10 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com electronic list: http://www.rediris.es/list/info/rentabasica.html. Contact address: [email protected] • http://www3.sympatico.ca/tim.rourke/bi.html: Run by Tim Rourke, a quick seminar on what Basic Income is all about so that people can then get up from the computer screen and go and do something about it." Contact address: [email protected]

6. MORE ABOUT BIEN

BIEN's EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

• Prof. Ilona Ostner ([email protected]), co-chair; • Dr Guy Standing ([email protected]), co-chair; • Alexander de Roo MEP ([email protected]), treasurer; • Prof. ([email protected]), research coordinator; • Prof. Philippe Van Parijs ([email protected]), secretary, with support fromYannick Vanderborght ([email protected]) • Dr Stuart Duffin ([email protected]), communication co-ordinator, with support from Jurgen De Wispelaere ([email protected]).

HONORARY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

• Prof. Edwin Morley-Fletcher ([email protected]) • Prof. Robert J. van der Veen ([email protected]) • Dr Walter Van Trier ([email protected]) • Dr Steven Quilley ([email protected]).

HOW TO BECOME A MEMBER OF BIEN

Membership of BIEN is open to anyone who shares its objectives. The individual membership fee is 25 Euros for 1999-2000 or 100 Euros for life membership. BIEN Members receive hard copies of the Newsletter, are kept informed of relevant meetings, seminars and research projects and have voting rights at BIEN's General Assembly held every second year in conjunction with the Congress. A broad membership strengthens BIEN in its efforts to put basic income on academic and political agendas. It also provides much appreciated support to the unpaid activity of the Executive Committee and gives BIEN a firm basis for the funding of its modest running costs. A full statement of accounts is submitted to the General Assembly. To become a BIEN member, please fill out the Memberhip Subscription Form or download the Individual Membership Form which are both on the BIEN web site (http://www.etes.ucl.ac.be/BIEN/JoinBien.htm). An acknowledgment will be sent upon receipt. For further questions, e-mail BIEN at [email protected].

BIEN'S LIFE MEMBERS

James Meade (+), Gunnar Adler-Karlsson (SE), Maria Ozanira da Silva (BR), Ronald Dore (UK), Alexander de Roo (NL), Edouard Dommen (CH), Philippe Van Parijs (BE), P.J. Verberne (NL), Tony Walter (UK), Philippe Grosjean (BE), Malcolm Torry (UK), NN (Geneva, CH), Andrew Williams (UK), Roland Duchatelet (BE), Manfred Füllsack (AT), Anne-Marie Prieels (BE), Philippe Desguin (BE), Joel Handler (US), Sally Lerner (CA), David Macarov (IL), Paul Metz (NL), Claus Offe (DE), Guy Standing (CH), Hillel Steiner (UK), Werner Govaerts (BE), Robley George (US), Yoland Bresson (FR), Richard Hauser (DE), Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy (BR), Jan-Otto Andersson (FI), Ingrid Robeyns (UK), John Baker (IE), Rolf Kuettel (CH), Michael Murray (US), Carlos Farinha Rodrigues (PT), Yann Moulier Boutang (FR), Joachim Mitschke (DE), Rik van Berkel (NL), François Blais (CA), Katrin Töns (DE), NN (New York, US), Gérard Degrez (BE), Michael Opielka (DE), Lena Lavinas (BR), Julien Dubouchet (CH), Jeanne Hrdina (CH), Joseph Huber (DE), Markku Ikkala (FI), Luis Moreno (ES), Rafael Pinilla (ES), Graham Taylor (UK), W. Robert Needham (CA), Tom Borsen Hansen (DK), Ian Murray (US), Peter Molgaard Nielsen (DK), Fernanda Rodrigues (PT), Helmut Pelzer (DE), Rod Dobell (CA), Walter Van Trier (BE), Loek Groot (NL), Andrea Fumagalli (IT), Bernard Berteloot (FR), Jean-Pierre Mon (FR), Angelika Krebs (DE), Ahmet Insel (FR), Alberto Barbeito (AR), Ruben Lo Vuolo (AR), Manos Matsaganis (GR), José Iglesias Fernández (ES), Daniel Eichler (DE), Cristovam Buarque (BR), Michael Lewis (US), Clive Lord (UK), Jean Morier-Genoud (FR), Eri Noguchi (US), Michael Samson (ZA), Ingrid van Niekerk (ZA), Karl Widerquist (US), Al Sheahen (US), Christopher Balfour (AND), Jurgen De Wispelaere (UK), Wolf-Dieter Just (DE), Zsuzsa Ferge (HU), Paul Friesen (CA), Nicolas Bourgeon (FR), Marja A. Pijl (NL)

 Basic Income European Network 2002 – BIEN Online: http://www.basicincome.org

BIEN NewsFlash No11 – September 2001 – page 11 of 11 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com